


We Can Wait Here For Tomorrow

by geckoholic



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Reunions, Sheithlentines 2017, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-12 06:21:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10484169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/pseuds/geckoholic
Summary: The big turn-around in his life wasn't the apocalypse. It was a few months before, when the promising-if-rebellious Cadet Kogane got thrown out on his ass and turned into a bitter recluse. The hybrids just made his life post-Garrison a bit more difficult. But he still avoids other human beings like they carry the plague – which they might, now – and he's still living by himself in his inherited shack, surrounded by memories and dust.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [daimeiwaku](https://archiveofourown.org/users/daimeiwaku/gifts).



> I've been hovering between the request for something set a few years into a relationship between these two post canon, and Zombie AU. The latter won out, sort of, though I have to apologize for the lack of actual, on-the-page zombies. Ah well. They're there. Kinda. 
> 
> Beta-read by lustyjustice. Thank you!! ♥ All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Title is from "Something Beautiful" by OLR.

Had you asked Keith what he'd miss the most from, you know, proper civilization, he'd probably give one of the standard answers. Electricity. Cell phones. Public transportation. Shit like that. He'd have said it after maybe twenty seconds of contemplation, and not meant it in the slightest. He has never been the type to think past the day after tomorrow, let alone consider his priorities in case of a global disaster. He'd have just wanted to answer the question and get away from the conversation. 

Now, two years past such a global disaster, Keith has a full list of things he misses like crazy. Electricity is sort of on it, but only as a means to an end. Keith misses Sunday morning cartoons, he misses ceiling fans and long showers, and he misses ice cream. Which, listen. That totally makes sense, because he's in a desert and it's fucking _hot_ , okay? Never mind the fact that he was raised in a desert shack without aircon and came out of that better equipped for this scorching post-apocalyptic wasteland than almost anyone else. 

Speaking of which, the list of people he misses is significantly shorter, if just as much of a pipe dream. It contains two names and the vague concept of a third, and he knows for sure they're all dead. 

Cravings and lost luxuries aside, an argument could be made that Keith's life hasn't actually changed too much since the aliens attacked and left the planet a burnt-out battleground dotted with undead hybrids. Said hybrids are the biggest difference between then and now and yeah, he had running water and a freezer and a grocery store in, shall we say, walking distance, if by _walking distance_ one means an hour and a half both ways. But he still avoids other human beings like they carry the plague – which they might, now – and he's still living by himself in his inherited shack, surrounded by memories and dust. 

The big turn-around in his life wasn't the apocalypse. It was a few months before, when the promising-if-rebellious Cadet Kogane got thrown out on his ass and turned into a bitter recluse. The hybrids just made his life post-Garrison a bit more difficult. 

And yeah, the Garrison. He can still see it in the distance, the buildings now weathered and beginning to be swallowed by the desert, one sand drift at a time. Its existence haunts him, keeps old wounds from turning into scars. Which is why he refuses to go back there, scour it for supplies even if that might save him the trouble of hunting for at least a few months, what with the storage full of military rations and ammo, and the vending machines full of snacks and candy. Maybe even ice cream; the Garrison has an independent generator, and judging from the lights illuminating the yard at night it's still running on emergency mode. Plus, scavengers give it a berth, considering the solid steel doors and vast security – it's basically impossible to get in without an access card – and the small payout in exchange for the effort needed to find a way around that. 

Keith has such an access card. Not his own – that was taken when he was expelled – but someone else's, part of the personal effects he stole after said someone disappeared. Died. Whatever. If he's still alive he's probably better off, somewhere in outer space, far away from this godforsaken planet. 

Meanwhile, back down here, Keith once again walks in the other direction when he goes out to hunt as soon as the sun disappears beyond the horizon. He puts his hoodie up and draws his jacket closer around himself, makes sure the knife – that was always his most precious possession and is now essential to his survival – is safely secured at his hip, shoulders his bag and shotgun, and locks the door of the shack behind himself. He touches the dog tags dangling from a chain around his neck, the name of someone long gone imprinted on the metal. He double-checks that he's carrying enough rounds to barrage his way out of a pack hybrids, should he find himself surrounded. 

That's the downside of hunting at night: it means that there will be more hybrids roaming about. It also means, however, that the temperatures will be at least somewhat bearable. The relative safety that keeps both hybrids and other humans away from the open desert during the day is worth shit if it means he might risk a heat stroke. 

His prey is modest. Desert hares, rats, lizards in a pinch. He'll find some bushes with edible fruits or enduring succulents now and then to keep his diet varied, and he carries a botany book with him whenever he goes out so he can avoid the poisonous ones. Water is less of a concern; the shack comes with its own well, although his efforts to take advantage of that and cultivate plants have been spectacular failures. Some sprouted, but they all burned and withered under the unforgiving sun within the week. 

Hand coming up to the dog tags again, both out of boredom and aimless trepidation, Keith keeps his eyes trained on the shrubbery, scanning it for movement that will give unfortunate rodents. His stomach growls, insistent; his last hunting trip hadn’t been particularly successful. Even small animals are dying out, it seems, and that only supports Keith's sneaking suspicion that the heat has been getting worse. Mankind's days, he figures, are numbered. The planet will become uninhabitable for humans sooner or later, and the only consolation in that is that the hybrids' extinction won't be far behind once they're out of their favored food source. 

Keith kicks at a small rock, watches a millipede skitter out from underneath it, and frowns. Unless he wants to make a meal out of insects and dry shrubs for the foreseeable future, he only has one option. He shields his eyes and squints at the silhouette of the Garrison in the distance, sighs, and turns around to get his stolen access card. Time to make his pride yield to his survival instincts. 

 

***

 

The Garrison has three main entrances: center, which leads to the school grounds, south, which leads to the offices, and north, which leads to the research division. Keith tries the central entrance first, finds it blocked with the carcass of a crash-landed alien ship, covered in purple rust where it isn't overgrown by dried green fungus. The south entrance is a bust too, having been on the side of the building that the desert laid claim to, and he's getting increasingly anxious while he walks across the yard to the north entrance. If that's out of commission as well... he'd discarded the Garrison as a source for supplies for _two years_ , but now that he's here, the idea that it might not be accessible even if he's in dire need for the riches it contains leaves him terrified. Surely there'll be other ways inside, air ducts or garbage chutes, but lounging around here isn't safe. He's presenting himself like meat on a platter. The more time he spends wandering the grounds, hungry and exhausted, the more likely it becomes that someone will see him, _something_ , and after the long walk here it's nearly morning. He's been banking on getting in; he might not make it all the way back to the shack in the full day's heat. 

Heart beating in his throat, he rounds the last corner, and breathes a sigh of relief when he sees the north entrance, unobstructed and with the blinking green light of the keypad already visible from several feet away. Once he reaches the door, he turns the access card around in his hands, staring at the picture showing its previous owner – spotless uniform, brilliant and confident smile, neatly kept but totally not regulation-approved undercut, and pride in his eyes. Keith swallows and chides himself for being emotional – plenty of time for that when he's back home – and swipes the card. The heavy metal doors rumble to life, and then he's inside. The air is cold, still being rolled over through the air con, and the lights are on beyond the sparse emergency illumination he expected. And while that's good, means the freezers will also likely still work, it also fills him with a vague sense of dread. There's two reasons for full habitation protocols still being active: a system malfunction, or actual human inhabitants. 

Just as he's finished that thought, Keith stubs his toe on something on the ground. Torn from his thoughts and chiding himself for getting so distracted, he looks down, and sees a pile – an actual small _pile_ – of skeletons blocking his path. A handful, maybe, the ground below them discolored, the clothes hanging on them still vaguely recognizable as Garrison uniforms. That'd speak to the reports that were broadcast for the few hours after the initial attack when broadcasting still worked: the Garrison was the first battle ground of a war as short-lived as it was unwinnable, and no one made it out alive. He considers the possibility that these were classmates of his, fellow cadets he knew and used to walk past in the hallways on his way to class, but discards the thought. There's no merit in dwelling on that. He's here for a reason, and it's not reminiscing over the loss of people he had never been that close to in the first place. The only person in the whole Garrison he truly cared for died millions of miles away from here, in a spacecraft on its way to Kerberos. 

He shakes his head, reminds himself again that this isn't the time to get emotional. He steps around the remains and carries on, trying to recall the layout of the place and figure out how he'll get to the kitchen. But the research labs had never been his stomping grounds so he wanders aimlessly, almost recognizing something every time he rounds another corner. He knows that might just be his familiarity with the design of the building as a whole, and soon he's got to admit that he's gotten lost in here. Everything looks the same and the small plates by the doors have little meaning when all they do is announce the numbers of each lab. 

Wondering if it's day outside by now, if he'll have to wait for nightfall in here, he catches a faint purple glow from below the door of one of the labs ahead. He hovers between caution and curiosity for a moment. Predictably, the latter wins. 

The door is unlocked and opens to a room larger than Keith had expected, about three times the size of the flight simulator on the other end of the building. Paper printouts lie scattered on the floor, the screens of two of the five computers by the wall next to the door are cracked, and all of them are offline. On the whole, it looks like a battleground, broken furniture strewn everywhere. 

The source of the purple glow is a glass tube that looks... alien. Keith bites his lips to keep from chuckling at the realization. He reaches out to wipe away the thick layer of dust on the glass and – 

His legs nearly give out. He rubs his eyes and looks again, tries to count how many hours it has been since he last slept, or if maybe the hunger has started to drive him mad. 

Beyond the glass rests a familiar face – changed, but not unrecognizable. The shape of his face is a little different, more haggard than it used to be, there's an ugly, jagged scar across his nose, and the forelock falling into his face is white, not black. Still, even after blinking and rubbing his eyes and looking again, Keith doesn't have any doubt. He's sure, feels it down to the marrow of his bones. _Shiro._ He wipes more dust away, revealing a body that's broader and more defined than it used to be, clad in a tight black bodysuit, clavicles and the rise of the pectoral muscles clearly visible through the fabric. 

Keith abandons uncovering more of him in favor of glancing down towards the buttons and controls on the lower half of the tube, glowing white with runes he doesn't have a first clue about deciphering. He glances back up to knock his fist against the glass, unsurprised to find it thick and impenetrable. He gives the bottom of the tube a good kick, then puts both his hands flat on the glass. It occurs to him that he doesn't even know whether or not Shiro's alive in there; he looks like he's sleeping, but if he came down with the invasion he's been in here for two years. Keith doesn't know anything about stasis, but surely there's a time limit on how long someone can remain frozen before he starts deteriorating, strange alien tube or not. That'd be just his luck, putting off coming here all his time just to find Shiro dead, beyond saving because Keith wouldn't move past his wounded pride and – 

He takes a breath, holds it, then breathes out slowly. Turns his attention to the runes on the controls and squints, trying to find _anything_ familiar in the unknown language. He pushes a few of the buttons, mostly at random, and reels back when a display flickers at the edge of the area he's wiped clean of dust and grime. With the sleeve of his jacket, he cleans more of the glass until he can see the whole picture and reminds him vaguely of... vital signs? A pulsing line that could be a weird alien heart monitor, and a repeating sequence of runes in a running text beside it, both following a steady rhythm. 

Keith pushes a few more buttons, with no visible result, and then swivels around on his heels to look for something heavy enough to break the glass. He sees nothing of the sort, unless he's going to throw a computer monitor at it, which, nope terrible idea. What he needs is something long and precise, like a crowbar or a hammer. The mechanics department ought to have stuff like that, right? He just has to _find it_. With a reluctant glance back to Shiro's face, unmoving and oddly pale behind the glass, Keith heads for the door. 

He's a few steps into the hallway when someone wraps strong arms around his torso, like a vice, strong and unforgiving. The attack is swift and skillful, and Keith's first instinct is to get his knife and aim for the head. But hybrids have an odor, stink like the walking corpses that they are, and the whoever's just melted out of the shadows to get him into a headlock may smell like he's in need of a shower and a change of clothes, like everyone else these days, but he doesn't smell like _death_. Keith leans forward to bite the arm that's wrapped around his neck, restricting his airway, and steps back to tangle his own legs with the other person's. It’s a sneaky, cowardly way of fighting, but the world as a whole is way past elegance. And it works; his attacker topples, making them both stagger to the ground, and Keith seizes the element of surprise to roll them over and climb on top of them, pressing his own arm to the other's windpipe. 

He lets it fall away almost immediately, because the person he's got pinned, the person who attacked him – 

“Shiro?” Keith asks, barely above a whisper. It shouldn't be such a shock after seeing him in the tube, seeing the vital signs, but it's just _incomprehensible_ after years of grieving him and futilely trying to move on, to forget. 

And Shiro's face mirrors the surprise, the wild flurry of emotions that Keith himself is experiencing: confusion, fear, joy. “I thought,” he starts, then clears his throat. “The attack on the Garrison when I arrived, they said they killed everyone, I thought you were – “

Keith shakes his head, enthusiastically, a smile blooming on his face that he doesn't bother to bite down on. “No. No, I wasn't here when that happened. I got expelled after you – Oh god, fuck, Shiro. _You're alive._ ” 

Shiro smiles back, going slack underneath him. “Well. Right back at you?” 

 

***

 

They end up wandering the halls in search of some hint for the kitchen together. Keith has other instincts – he wants to find a nurse's office, wants to check Shiro over, make sure he's all there and healthy and _okay_ – but Shiro waves the suggestion away. And while the kitchen and its spoils stay elusive, they at least find a vending machine. 

Leaning against the cold metal walls that the whole Garrison consists of, they munch on peanut caramel candy bars and gummy bears and potato chips, and it's not a long-term strategy, surviving on junk like that, but Keith's taste buds sing with long-forgotten flavors. After they both amassed a small pile of empty or half-full bags and wrappers around them, Keith glances at Shiro, nudges him lightly with his elbow. 

“What happened to you?” he asks, voice small. 

Shiro winces, shoulders hunching with it, gaze falling to the floor. “Thought that might be obvious.”

And yeah, in part it might be, what with finding him in an alien tube and discovering the metal prosthetic in place of his right arm that glows the same color. Still, that brings up more questions than it answers, and there was a whole year between loss of contact with the Kerberos mission and the arrival of the alien ships here on earth. 

Keith accepts the deflection, though, figures there'll be time to swap anecdotes on the end of the world later. Because one thing he knows for sure: he's never letting Shiro out of his sight again. Whatever happens from here on in, they're in it together. And if that means starving to death within the next couple weeks, if that, well then so be it. 

He nudges Shiro again, and when Shiro looks up, one eyebrow quirked, he says takes the bag off his shoulder and indicates the vending machine. “Let's pack what we can and move on. We need real food if we want to survive. It'll have to be around here somewhere.” 

He rises to his feet, and Shiro doesn't move until Keith holds up a hand to pull him up. 

Soon they start passing by living quarters, distinguishable by the message boards on the walls and the plates next to each door announcing names, in groups of two to six, rather than lab numbers. That makes sense, Keith figures; the vending machine should have been their clue that they've left the research wing. Despite being full of greasy and sweet and chocolatey treats, Keith's stomach cramps and growls in anticipation of finding the kitchen and all the food _that_ holds. 

He nearly cries when they do, when they step into the large mess hall and see the serving counter, behind which he knows are the large communal pantry and the freezers and maybe, if they're lucky, sinks with running water. And he knows they're not supposed to overeat, to indulge, because Keith himself has been underfed for longer than he can remember now and who even knows what the tube may have done to Shiro's metabolism, but that doesn't keep him from marching into the freezer – still working, making him shiver violently within seconds of stepping in there – and looking for ice cream. 

Shiro chuckles at him when he marches back out, teeth clattering with the cold, and shoves a large box of plain vanilla ice cream at him. Which, yeah, probably fair, given that Keith lectured him about healthy food a mere fifteen minutes ago, but Shiro hasn't spent the last two years in a desert with no electricity. Shiro hasn't literally dreamed of creamsicles. Shiro can shove the fond smile, watching Keith dig into the ice cream with his bare hands, licking it off his fingers. 

 

***

 

The day passes – or at least Keith figures it does, it's not like he'll ever know, with the building in lockdown – while they use the community showers in the gym and have some more food and then go search for fresh underwear and t-shirts and have yet more food. Keith knows that they can't stay here indefinitely. That he doesn't want to either, already feeling boxed in, like the walls are starting to close in on him. Everything here reminds him of the time they spent together as cadets, and the tightness in his chest, the vigorous flares of grief for someone who's now once more standing right beside him, don't listen to reason. 

On the other hand, it's not like the world out there, his shack, hold much happier memories. Every place Keith ever lived in is a place that reminds him of being left behind. 

“What's on your mind?” Shiro asks, because there was never a time when he hadn't been able to read Keith's mood right off his face. 

They're sat in the mess hall again, all proper, with dinner trays and on chairs at a long table. Being the only people in here is weird, makes it seem like they're dining amongst ghosts. Keith thinks of the skeletons he saw near the entrance, and how he expected to see more wherever they went. That's another reason why staying here will make him crawl out of his skin sooner or later. 

“Nothing,” he says. At Shiro's eye roll amends to, “I don't know. I missed you. Everyone else we know is dead. This place is one big casket. Shit like that.” 

Keith leans in to kiss him, draws back again when he finds Shiro meets him halfway, lets him seal their lips together, but his posture remains stiff and coiled. Keith draws back and cocks his head in silent question. 

Shiro looks away, then, and grabs hold of his tray with both hands before he stands. “We should find some place to sleep. I'm tired. You must be too.” 

_Some place to sleep_ ends up being Shiro's old room. It would feel wrong to settle into some random cadet's room, and Keith refuses to go sleep into the bed he lay in the first few nights after news about the loss of the Kerberos mission broke, crying his eyes out until they were red and puffy, until his chest hurt from gulping in air alongside hiccupping sobs. After he was declared dead, it had been reassigned, practical use of Garrison resources and all, but Keith had been gone at that point. He can pretend there wasn't anyone else here, that the room never belonged to one of the corpses strewn around the building. 

They undress in silence. More to the point, Keith does, already down to his worn, threadbare briefs while Shiro's still fiddling with the clasps of his bodysuit. He's never been overly modest, especially not after they'd started seeing each other laid bare on the regular, and so Keith assumes it's not about nudity. It does look like Shiro's stalling, takes longer to unlock the mechanisms at the neck and back that keep the whole thing in place on purpose. 

He steps behind Shiro and puts both hands on the back of his neck, lets them wander along his shoulder blades, waiting for a low groan before he focuses on undoing the clasps. He sucks in a breath between his teeth when he sees the expanses of skin he reveals as the suit falls away. They're familiar and they're not, Shiro's entire body marred with scars, different in shape and size and in various stages of fading away. 

“Don't ask,” Shiro pleads. He bends to retrieve one of the standard issue white boxers they pilfered and pulls it on, then walks to the bed and pulls the sheets back. “Not now. Not yet. I'll explain later.” 

They climb into bed together, Keith curled around Shiro's back, and it becomes obvious rather quickly that neither of them is likely to find rest anytime soon, tired as they both might be. Shiro's breathing hitches now and then, although Keith doesn't think he's crying. It sounds like unease, like fear closes in on him every time he closes his eyes, like he's terrified of what he'll see in his dreams. 

“What's on your mind?” Keith asks, repeating Shiro's own question from the mess hall. 

Shiro remains quiet for a long time, the added tension in the line of his body against Keith's the only sign that he heard the question at all. “Turns out space isn't a dream. It's a nightmare.” 

That answers everything and nothing, and Keith doesn't ask him to elaborate. He just holds him closer, presses his cheek against the nape of his neck. “Good thing you're back, then.” 

At that, Shiro huffs a laugh, but it's bitter and hollow. “Mankind as a whole might disagree.” 

“I don't care about mankind as a whole,” says Keith, and he means it, harsh as it sounds. “Never have. I just care about you.” 

In their early days, Shiro would have argued. Insisted that couldn't be true, and that, if push came to shove, Keith would rally for Earth's defense like the rest of them. Right now, Shiro just shifts in his arms, rolling over to face him. 

“I think it was me,” he says, looking Keith straight in the eyes, and the pain practically seeps from his voice. “The hybrids. I think they used me to make them, somehow.” 

There is no possible reply to that, little that could lower the impact of Shiro believing he's responsible for the demise of humanity. And so Keith doesn't try, doesn't play it down. All he says is, “I don't care. You're here. You're back with me. _I don't care._ ”

It's the truth. That's all that matters; the rest of the world never did much of anything for him, anyway. Shiro is back with him, and yeah, he must have seen terrible things and he's different and maybe some alien race used him to wipe out earth's population. But he lowers his head and rolls himself up impossibly small given his large frame, rests his forehead against Keith's collarbone, his breath puffing out against Keith's skin, and he's whole, and he's _here_.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://lostemotion.tumblr.com) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/spacenerdz).


End file.
